That gets my blood up. “They can go fuck themselves. What Rachel’s doing is great. Yeah, she’s selling sexy stuff, but she’s also educating. You should have seen those women. They had fun, and they learned a lot, too. If we have customers who are uptight about this, they can fuck right off.”

Gabe draws back, obviously startled by my speech—and my vehemence.

But he doesn’t argue. He looks at me, considering, and then nods. “I need numbers,” he says. “Show me the numbers.”

And once again I’m staring at his back as he strides away.

Damn it.

This is such a familiar scenario. The way my stomach clenches, I might as well still be the teenager who just lost his first job after showing up late for the third time in a row.

Nothing I do will ever be good enough for Gabe.

Lucy’s face is sympathetic. Her kindness makes me feel, if anything, a tiny bit worse than Gabe’s hardassery.

“You got this, Brody,” she says. “We’re going to make this work. I’m going to go get started on your campaign. Line up as many of these as you can with Rachel and let me know the dates.”

“Thanks.” I hand her back her phone, which she pockets before heading back to her workstation.

I pull out my own phone and take another look at the reviews.

It was fun to talk about this stuff.

What a great setting for a party.

I’m pissed at Gabe, sure.

But for a change, that familiar emotion is warring with an unfamiliar one. It’s definitely quiet, muted—but it’s there.

Pride.

And that’s the emotion that makes me text Rachel:

Let’s do it.

9

Rachel

“Louisa,” I plead over the phone. “I need your help.”

Louisa is a first-class bestie. After I saw Werner’s butt, Louisa helped me pack up my stuff and get the hell out of that apartment. I slept at her place that night, and we shuttled the rest of my stuff into storage and found me a plane ticket. Meanwhile, she pushed boxes of tissues, glasses of water, chocolate, and wine at me, listened as I told the story of where perfect had landed me, and instructed me that I should have a rebound fling with “that bad boy.”

Ages ago, I’d mentioned that Brody was my first crush. Unrequited. She wanted to know if I’d ever tried to see if it could be requited, and I said that Brody had never given me even the slightest sign that he was interested in my existence, let alone my lady bits.

Anyway, I told Louisa, by the time I’d had the wherewithal to stage anything like a seduction, Connor had gone off to college and Brody had stopped coming around. She said that was lame, and I said it was life.

We were probably both right.